Week 6:Reflections on the Journey: Final Touches 
End of the Year Challenge: "Finish Strong!" 
As the year comes to a close, it's the perfect time to look back on your guitar journey, celebrate your progress, and set the stage for a powerful finish! Whether you've been steadily refining a piece all year, revisiting past favorites, or holding onto that "one day" project, now’s the time to bring it to life. Let’s wrap up this year with a final push, together!
Challenge Theme: Complete, Conquer, and Celebrate!
Goal:
Choose one guitar piece or project that has been on your list this year. This might be a piece you’ve been working on in lessons, something you’ve always wanted to learn but never started, or a performance you’d like to polish. Dedicate the final weeks of the year to bringing it to completion—whatever "finished" means for you!
Challenge Options:
Complete a Piece: If you’ve been working on a piece throughout the year, let’s aim to bring it to the finish line. Focus on refining tricky sections, memorizing it, or even recording it as a performance!
Start & Finish a New Piece: Is there a piece that’s been sitting on your "someday" list? Dive in! Start fresh, put in dedicated practice time, and see how far you can get by the end of the year.
Polish for Performance: Got a piece you can already play but want to perfect? Use this time to iron out the details and maybe even perform it for friends, family, or the tonebase community!
Challenge Guidelines:
Set Your Goals: Decide on the piece or project and set a few concrete goals (e.g., "play smoothly at tempo," "record a full video," or "memorize all sections").
Share Your Journey: Post your progress, questions, and reflections with the community! Let us know what you're working on, why you chose it, and any hurdles you’re overcoming.
Celebrate the Wins: At the end of the challenge, share your "finished" version! Whether it’s a recording, a progress update, or simply sharing your reflections, let’s celebrate together.
Dates:
This challenge runs from now until December 30th. Finish the year with a sense of accomplishment and the motivation to take on new pieces in the coming year!
Why Join?
This isn’t just about completing a piece; it’s about proving to yourself what you can achieve with focus and support. Join us for a fun, collaborative way to end the year on a high note. 
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I've been working for the past 3 weeks on the Prelude, I did not post as often as I thought I would. I feel it a bit better under my fingers, but there is more way to go. I may post one more time this week if I make more progress. New strings , medium high tension, bass sound is louder and brighter, but quite squeaky.
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Calin Lupa Beautiful, Caitlin. Very expressive. You have captured the hauntingly pensive mood of this piece. Bravo!
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Jack Stewart thank you Jack
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Calin Lupa beautiful.
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Calin Lupa Very nicely played and great tone of the right hand, just need to clean up those left hand squeaks.
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Dale Needles , joosje , thank you! Yes, I find the squeaks are hard to get rid of especially when jumping from barree and trying to maintain the legato the music demands.
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Calin Lupa Beautiful piece from Barrios.....congratulations , you play it with very good articulation...Bravo
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Calin Lupa That's beautifully played Calin
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Derek , JUAN ALONSO thank you!
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Calin Lupa This is beautiful, Calin! Well played with nice expression.
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Barney thank you, Happy New Year!
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Regondi - Etude 6 (Dec 23)
To kick off this challenge, I was working on Regondi's Etude 1. My favorite of his etudes, however, is definitely this one. I started with number 1 as it seemed more achievable, but now I am going to give number 6 a try. We'll see how it goes.
This piece is in A-B-A form, and the A section is less difficult than the B section (isn't that almost always the case?). Here, I am just playing the A section, which by itself is a wonderful piece of music. So, even if I never conquer the B section, I could be happy just playing this. That said, the A section still needs a lot more work.
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Eric Phillips Beautiful playing, Eric, especially for such a short period of time. I would give my left hand to be able fork up such challenging works in such a short time. Uhhh… I should probably reconsider that offer.
i share your assessment of most works ‘B’ sections. I imagine these composers sitting in a darkened room chortling demonically at the thought of aspiring guitarists getting sucked into working on an approachable first section only to be confronted with the next section.
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Eric Phillips Beatifull piece, you enhance very well the melody over the accompaniment.....Bravo Eric....
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Eric Phillips Great start with this, Eric! It's one of my favourite Regondi etudes too (although I like the fourth just as well). I can't imagine you'll have undue difficulty with the second part, even though, as you say, it's more challenging than the first, as 'B' sections generally are. (And certainly that long passage, rising to its climax in the 14th position is, to borrow Jack Stewart 's apt metaphor, Regondi at his demonic best/worst!)
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Here is a Tonebase favourite of mine that I have been working with on and off throughout the year. I think this matches up well with this challenge. Specifically, I am referring to Landslag I. Only recently have I been working on adding dynamics to repertoire and I believe that I have finally have this piece reasonably matching up with the composer's dynamics on the sheet music.
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Jim King Very beautiful and haunting piece. Keep up the good work on this. It is coming along very nicely.
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Jim King This is sounding really good Jim. Your persistence has paid off! It is very challenging to present such a sparse and ‘simple’ piece of music but you’ve done a wonderful job. Thanks for this performance. Bravo!
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Jim King Beatifully played .....with very good articulation...I never heard that piece before (I allways though classic pieces were better than modern stuff), but as I hear to you I see (hear) how nice it is.... Bravo
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Dale Needles Jack Stewart JUAN ALONSO Thank you for listening and your kind comments. Much appreciated.
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Jim King That's nice Jim. I keep coming back to these pieces but never stick at them long enough to do them justice.
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Jim King Great job, Jim! Good dynamic control.
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Derek Thank you Derek. I know the feeling. I would work on this for a bit and then put it away for awhile because I wasn't making progress. But then I would go back to it to see if I could make it better. Did this several times. I think I kept coming back to it because I like the tune so much. I guess one just needs to find the right piece(s) to motivate one to keep returning to it.
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Eric Phillips Thank you Eric. I have only recently focused on my dynamics and am pleased how this has turned out.
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Hi all. I've not been as active as I would have liked on Tonebase this year - hopefully next year I will be appearing more! In the meantime I would like to wish everyone a Very Merry Christmas and a healthy and happy New Year.
Here is my contribution to the challenge. There are a couple of glitches in the video, I don't know why they happened but it was a bit of a rush job.
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Derek This is a gentle and beautiful piece that you have performed wonderfully, Derek. I have never heard this before.
Great to see you again.
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